Friday, May 20, 2011

VIDEOS: FIVE APOCALYPTIC MOVIE SCENARIOS

In celebration of the End of Days, the folks at MOVIEFONE compiled the five best apocalyptic scenarios they could think of while waiting in line to buy canned goods and bottled water. In the movies, things always go down in a fiery jumble of aliens, zombies, nuclear havoc or assault by asteroid, but don't fret, fair Moviefone readers. Space invaders aren't coming this Saturday, the Big Man Upstairs is -- and he knows how to turn water into wine.

Even though this should be self-explanatory, be warned, some violent and disturbing content follows.

Nuclear War:

Bombs go off in movies all the time, but a fictional nuclear tragedy has never felt more real than it did in James Cameron's 1991 smash 'Terminator 2: Judgment Day.' Rather than focus on the demolition of buildings, Cameron opted to show the explosion from Sarah Conner's (Linda Hamilton) point of view. And what she watching when the bomb went off? A playground full of children, of course.

Attack by Aliens:

Steven Spielberg has a complex relationship with aliens. Sometimes they are lovable and nice and remind everyone what it means to be a family ('E.T.'), and sometimes they are pretty awful. The aliens in the 2005 remake of 'War of the Worlds' fall squarely in the latter category. They're here to take over, and they brought massive tripods equipped with lasers that reduce us mortals to dust. Watch your back!

The Weather Turns On Us:

Remember when 'The Day After Tomorrow' came out and there were all those TV specials asking how realistic the story was? Do you remember the answer? It was "Well, it probably wouldn't be that fast, but yeah, it could kinda happen." Climate change has made the possibility of mega-storms a scary-real prospect, and director Roland Emmerich, no stranger to world destruction after 'Independence Day,' gave us a peek at what it could look like with 'Tomorrow.' As usual in films like this, things do not turn out well for New York City.

Asteroids/Comets:

Though our friends who are predicting this weekend's apocalypse might try and tell you that Satan created fossils to fool you, most scientists agree that a major impact by an asteroid killed the dinosaurs. A big one smashed into Earth (some say in the Gulf of Mexico near the Yucatan Peninsula), sent a bunch of debris into the atmosphere, blocking out the sun and killing most of the plant life that sustained the food chain. Dino and his friends were kaput. So, it's only natural that the asteroid-meets-Earth scenario is a favorite way to scare audiences. In 30 short seconds, Paris bid adieu to the face of the planet when a big guy slammed into the city's center in 1998's 'Armageddon.' We're not sure what Jesus has planned for Saturday, but consider our telescopes pointed skyward.